Rox on the treadmill

27 Quick Tips for Better Performance

No matter how good your football strength training program is, we all get stuck at galore point. Sometimes you need to pull something out of your bag of tricks to get progress going again. It may be something huge, like a total program change. Or, it may be something as simple as mixing up the reps or adding a new strength training tool to your toolbox.

Here are 27 tips and tricks to get you closer to hitting your football strength goals.

1. Guns not growing? Try Arm Wrestler Curls. This partial motion allows you to overload the biceps and likewise build explosive strength, which will concede you to use more weight in your normal curl exercises. Sit down with bar in hands, place your forearms on your thighs, and explode the weight up. Go heavy. 3 – 5 sets of 4 – 6 reps.

2. “Choke up” on the bar when doing Dumbbell curls. The biceps’ occupation is to turn the palms, so by placing your index finger closer to the plates on the dumbbell, the bi’s will carry out more work when supinating the hands. This may not seem like much, but it may make a huge difference.

3. If you are having trouble putting on muscle, try decelerating down the negative percentage of the lift then exploding up! This won’t do much for strength but it will lead to an increase in lean muscle.

Slow the negative down and then explode up as fast as possible.

4. Always lift the bar as fast as possible, no matter what the exercise or how much weight is on the bar. Lifting fast will train your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which will lead to a better physique and bettered performance in any sport. Even if the bar is heavy, the intention to accelerate it as fast as possible is what counts.

If you concentrate on always moving the bar as fast as possible, you’ll never have to worry in regards to not being fast sufficient for football! This type of training is the mystery on how to get more quickly for football…

5. Use chains and bands to accommodate resistance. The problem with lifting fast is that the body will decelerate the bar as it nears lockout to prevent bad things like your joints breaking. Adding bands or chains to the bar genuinely “adds” weight to the bar as you near lockout, so you must accelerate all the way through or you will miss the lift!

Another issue is that ofttimes we are firmest in the last 1/3 of a lift, so that percentage of the motion is under-trained. Bands and chains will increase resistance as the chains come off the ground or the bands are stretched, therefore making the entire lift hard.

6. Bands aren’t just for explosive strength. Adding bands to the bar and fighting their pull on the way down will accentuate the negative and lead to more muscle gain. A great way to try this is to loop one end of a band around a barbell, and the other end around the bottoms of your feet (a position called stumping). Do curls as you normally would, but fight the bands on the letting down portion. You’ll feel it the next day.

You may also stump the band around your back and transform the usual Push-up into a hard-core, muscle-building motion that will challenge even the firmest lifters. High rep push ups with bands added is an magnificent way for a young football player to add quality muscle to his upper body.

7. Is your Deadlift or Squat hurtin’? Try performing numerous jumps before your pull or squat. Do regarding 5 jumps either onto a plyo box, on stairs, over a bench, or just do Vertical Jumps. I picked this up from Joe Defranco and it always seems to help get the big leg exercises going after hitting a wall.

One of my football players hit a 10lb P.R. in the Trap Bar Deadlift after weeks of stagnation after adding the jumps. Many others have seen similar increases.

8. Static stretching just before lifting heavy or performing athletically is not always a good idea…except for the calfs and hip flexors.

In most athletes, these two areas are notoriously tight and relaxing them prior to going all out may support increase performance. Football players are notoriously bad in this area!

Hold static stretchings for 2 sets of 30seconds, each leg. For the hip flexors, the lunge stretch works best. Remember, tight hip flexors have been called breaks, so don’t let them slow you down.

9. This one is a little odd, and might be hard to do if you train in a mercantile gym, but, from time to time, try training shoeless. This will provide a much dissimilar stress for the legs and likewise support in truth train the feet. It seems weird, but get a foot injury and you’ll quickly realize the importance of foot health.

10. Go outside! Coach Dan John oftentimes talks regarding this. Why is any person running on a treadmill when we have thousands of miles of beauteous landscape to sprint across? There is just something freshening when it comes to going out into the constituents and exercising. Don’t let weather be an pardon either. Living in Jersey, I’ve trained in freezing rain and in choking humidity. If not one thing else, sprint and run outside. Buy a Kettlebell and get out and do a heap of swings and snatches and throws and anything else you may think of!

11. Video your lifts or routines as often as possible. The old saying in football is true in each sport; the film doesn’t lie. If you are having form issues either on stage, in the weightroom or on the field, the video will expose and concede you to repair them.

12. Training is great, but at a good deal of point you’ve gotta’ put it on the line. Obviously we all compete in football, but I’m talking with regards to something more…

Think you’re strong? Enter a Powerlifting or Olympic Lifting meet. Competing will aid keep you focused, give you an idea of where you are, and inspire you to constantly strive to carry out better.

13. Train in dissimilar types of shoes, exceptionally when Squatting. Try Olympic Lifting shoes, Deadlift slippers, Chuck Taylors, and even boots with a heel. All will put a dissimilar spun on the squat and aid improve strength and give more finish development in the legs. Most sneakers are terrible for lifting weights. They have too much cushion and the strength that you will have to be applying to the floor through your feet is just lost.

14. If your Bench, Incline, or other pressing movements are stalling, undertake altering grips. Go wide, narrow, mixed or reverse. This may provide a subtle, but much necessitated change to get things moving.

15. Constantly alter bars and handles on your pulling movements. Lat pulls may be down with a Lat bar, Rope, V-handle, Rotating Handles, D-Handles, Thick Bars, Spud Straps, or a towel. In fact, any cable exercise for the back may be trained on a big assortment of handles.

16. Change bars many times on all exercises. Take the regular Squat and give it a wicked twist by using a Safety Squat Bar, a Hip Belt, Manta Ray, or Cambered bar. Powerlifters constantly change the type of bar they squat with and they are a heap of of the best squatters on the planet. Use a thick bar for curls and pressing.

17. Have a big training session or meet coming up? Try this: 45 minutes pre-workout take 2 caffeine-free Spike, 3 L-tyrosine caps and either a strong cup of coffee or half a caffeine tab. This will inhibit serotonin, get the CNS fired up, and get your brain ready to train.

18. Sore in the middle of a heavy training cycle? After the firstborn heavy session of the week take a hot Epsom salt bath, then carry out 20-minutes of static stretching. The next session, rub either Blue Heat or if you are sentiment risky, try the super hot Nicoflex, on whatsoever areas are still sore. It’s best to wear long sleeves and sweat pants when doing this. Whatever soreness you have will be gone, along with rather a bit of sweat. Be careful with the Nicoflex in any areas that could burn, it gets super hot and the warmer you get, the hotter it becomes!

19. Super tired? Dragging yourself to the gym? Try everything listed in #17, take the Spike, Tyrosine, Caffeine, and take a serving of Power Drive then without delay take a 15 – 20 minute nap. This works best for those who have trained themselves to fall asleep quickly.

The nap provides much necessitated sleep and the supplements will begin to kick in just as you wake up. Save this for when genuinely needed.

20. If you are having disturb keeping on to Deadlifts, ditch the straps and train your grip. Straps are ok for training sometimes, but don’t neglect your grip strength! I realize it’s not always sexy for a woman to be capable to crush walnuts in her hand, but bettered grip strength will aid your biceps grow, give you better control in all exercises where the bar is in your hands, and, if you are an athlete, your hands may never be too strong.

You may train your grip in a potpourri of ways, but here are a lot of favorites:

- Use Grippers
- Do Timed Claw Holds keeping one end of a hex dumbbell
- Train with Thick Bars
- Use a thick handled Forearm Roller
- Do Power Holds: Load a thick bar and hold it at waist level for as long as possible
- Put a few plates together and carry out a Pinch Grip Hold for time

Train your grip 1 – 2 times per week and you’ll observe a huge divergence in closely all other upper body exercises.

21. If you find your progression decelerating but you have numerous extra time, try splitting a good deal of of your workouts in two. Instead of doing a long leg workout on Monday; do half Monday and the other-half on Tuesday.

This is inconvenient for most persons long-term, but it may provide a much necessitated intensity boost. Instead of giving the movements in the second half of your session half effort, move them to the next day and go after it hard.

22. Get in shape to get in shape: even if you don’t compete in Figure or don’t play sports, it’s always a outstanding idea to include 1 – 2 GPP (General Physical Preparation). Do 20 minutes of any of the following, once or twice a week:

- Walking with a loaded sled or Prowler
- Walk with a weighted vest
- Run Hill Sprints
- Swing a Sledge Hammer (10 – 1 minute rounds, each side)
- High Rep Kettlebell Swings with a light weight

So a great deal of people, athletes included, just run out of gas for the duration of hard training; train your GPP and you’ll be capable to power through even the toughest of training sessions.

23. Reading and learning is great. But, learning without employed action is worthless. Don’t be one of those lifters who spends months planning the perfective diet or program, all the while doing nothing! Part of the fun of this whole lifting thing is to learn along the way. Read, study, apply. Too a great deal of young football players and lifters spend so much time planning the perfective strength program that they do not one thing at all. Don’t be that guy!

24. Shake up your supplements. Supplements are just that; a way to supplement your nutrition plan. But, just as we tend to continually return to the workouts we like time after time; most of us stick to the same supplements as well.

Remember, you don’t have to stick to the established wisdom. I had a football player have tremendous results using Hot-Rox Extreme while bulking. Try new productions and track results closely.

25. Speaking of supplements, don’t think that only high-tech merchandise are result producing. Products like ZMA (maybe the most underrated supplement in the world), Creatine, Fish Oil, and Powerdrive may not promise to add 20lbs of muscle in 6-minutes, but they will provide you with outstanding long-term results.

26. At least once per training cycle, do something totally off plan. Use much higher reps, do exercises you don’t normally do, or carry out the entire workout as one giant super set.

Yes, long term these plans might not be the best fit for your goals, but, even when we make a concerted crusade to change our plans often, we may fall into a rut. The best thing to do is go out and do a program that is so not similar to your current program that you are closely frighted to do it! As Charles Staley once said, “The best program in the world is the one you’re doing now.”

You only have to do this for a day, so no need to fear. Actually, this is a great time to implement tip #10 as well. Take a Kettlebell outside and do high reps or throw it like you are training for the Highland Games!

27. Hire a coach. I confess I’m biased on this one, but now and then you have to look to a professional for guidance. Even if you are rather advanced, having somebody else who knows their stuff valuate share of your training may pay off huge.

I commend hiring someone for an area that you are either deficient in or just hate doing. For example, as much as I preach flexibleness to my athletes, I slack off on stretching. Well, until it gets bad and my deadlift starts to look like a demented teeter-totter!

In that case, I hire someone who stretchings me (either through Yoga or by a massage therapist). See, it’s easy to blow off stretching while watching “How I Met Your Mother,” but when I’m paying somebody to do it, you may bet I’ll be stretching! (Cheapness is a outstanding motivator)

Rox On The Treadmill

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